1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to operation of horizontal and vertical blinds or shades, and, more particularly, to cordless operation of such blinds or shades.
2. Description of the Prior Art
At least one child a month is accidentally strangled in window blind or shade operating cords, according to the U.S. Consumer Products Safety Commission. One proposal for solving the problem is to cut the loop in most window blind cords and then affixing safety pulls at the two cut ends. This thus replaces the preexisting loop with safety tassels. This stop gap solution obviously requires education by the consumer and is not applicable to vertical blinds or continuous loop roll up clutch systems. Such blinds must be fixed with tie down devices.
Thus, consumers have resorted to various home remedies to solve these problems, such as clamps or clothes pins to hold the cords, tying the cord to itself, cleats, tie down devices, cord reels, safety breakaway devices, etc. However, all these remedies do not solve the problem. For example, the safety breakaway device may knot into a non-breakaway cord.
A spiral wand having an actuator in contact therewith is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,759,398 to Renee. However, this device is limited merely to the tilting and rotating of slats only.
Either solution still results in dangling cords which can be dangerous to infants and small children who could still manage to somehow get caught up in such dangling cords.
There is a need for a cordless system for raising and lowering shades and blinds, and for rotating vertical louvers and horizontal slats, as well as traversing vertical blinds, open or closed, without the use of an operating cord.